Real Angels
by evilbunnies101
Summary: Dean Winchester is an FBI agent in a time when angels, well not REAL angels, walk the earth. When Castiel, an angel he met briefly in his early childhood, pops back up while he's working a case, Dean discovers that being a skeptic hasn't gotten him anywhere. AU. M for later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

Dean Winchester was five when the angels fell to Earth.

Well, actually, "angel" was just a generic term for them, and they probably hadn't literally fallen. He knew they'd been given some fancy scientific name, but that was something he wasn't required to know and therefore he'd never bothered learning it.

They looked like angels, though, like the ones you saw in old paintings. Like humans, only prettier, and with wings. Fucking wings.

Nobody knew what planet they were from, what galaxy, what universe...nothing. They were very close-lipped on the subject of themselves, and despite what it seemed like in movies, the US government didn't really have the resources or the right to torture and dissect them. Not that it would be easy to do that to something that looked like you, learned your language, and could break your neck with one hand.

Dean remembered watching the news with his dad when the angels' sudden appearance was still a huge deal. Sammy was asleep in his crib, barely a year old. Dean had liked the angels when he saw them in footage, they seemed nice. It reminded him of how his Mommy, dead from a house fire for a year at this point, told him before she tucked him into bed each night that angels were watching over him and his new baby brother. And now they were here. He hoped they would be happy to meet him.

"Do you think they can bring Mom back, Dad?" Dean asked hopefully, looking up at John Winchester, who was staring intently at the screen. His son's question shocked him out of it, and he looked down at the boy's hopeful, shining face.

"I...no," John answered gruffly, looking away as Dean's face fell. Damn it. "They aren't real angels."

Dean, of course, hadn't believed him. Angels performed miracles all the time; he'd learned it in Sunday School. He was sure that if he met one, if he asked nicely, they would bring his mom back to life.

Meanwhile, the angels were creating quite a stir. There religious groups who worshiped them. There were extraterrestrial/UFO enthusiasts who hounded them. There were individuals screaming on the streets in every major city that they were bad omens, harbingers of the Judeo-Christian apocalypse. There were open-minded people who welcomed them. And there were hate groups who attacked them, both verbally and physically. Killing them proved to be damned near impossible, but they could be hurt, maimed, scarred forever. The angels were taking jobs. They weren't American; they weren't even human. The angels were voting for the "Socialist liberals". These statements and others spewed from the mouths of every protestor brought in front of a camera. The world had a new minority to protect.

Dean prayed for an angel every night for a year, under his covers and barely above a breath because if John found out, he would probably yell. Sammy wasn't old enough to talk yet, so Dean had to pray twice as hard for the both of them.

He just wanted his mom back. He was pretty sure the angels were her friends, because obviously she had asked them to look after her sons. They were just busy, that was all. Dean understood that there were a lot of people to help.

When Dean heard his friend's mom talking about two angels moving in down the street, he knew he had his chance. They were going to live in the little white house that the old lady who died used to live in. That part was sad, but finally, his prayers had been answered.

Dean didn't bother asking John for permission because he knew he would say no. He told Sammy, though, quietly because his brother was supposed to be napping. Sam was staring widely at his older brother. He understood what he was being told, Dean was sure of it.

"Don't cry tonight, ok?" Dean pleaded fervently, "Dad can't wake up."

After laying out his plan, Dean slipped stealthily out of Sammy's room, wincing when the almost-toddler let out a sharp cry at his absence.

He glanced at the clock. Seven hours to go.

Dean peeked out the window several times throughout the day, trying to catch a glimpse of the angels. He didn't know what they looked like, but the wings would have given them away, probably. He never saw them, and their curtains were drawn.

Every time his dad caught him, he pretended to be looking for Jo Harvelle, daughter of their close friend and neighbor, Ellen.

"Jo's a baby, Dean," John said, "She's Sam's age. Why would you be looking for her?"

Dean shrugged. "She's ok to play with. I like babies."

John went to bed early that night, as Dean was hoping for, because he had to get up early for work, when Uncle Bobby would come over to babysit. But Dean had to wait an hour longer than he'd wanted because Sammy broke his promise and started crying.

At 10:00, when the upstairs was quiet, Dean tiptoed out of his room and down the steps. He unlocked the front door slowly so the locks wouldn't click noisily, and then he slipped through as small a crack as possible because the wider you opened the door, the louder it creaked.

Dean practically stumbled down the porch in relief. He was outside. He was on his way. He had to cross the street to get to the angel house, which terrified him a little, but there weren't any cars, so he risked it.

Just a few more houses to go. Dean wanted to run, but Uncle Bobby always said never to run in the dark unless you were in danger, so he didn't. He could see a dim light showing through the front curtains of their house, so he took that to mean they were awake, probably watching whatever his dad watched late at night. Thinking of TV made him wonder briefly if the angels liked the same cartoons that he did.

Almost there. He turned and leapt up their worn steps, head dizzy with excitement.

He almost yelped in fright when the door opened before he even knocked on it. He thought the angels must have known he was coming, but in truth, Balthazar opened the door because it sounded like a herd of buffalo was on their front porch.

Ellen was shocked, to say the least, when she happened to look out her window and see Dean Winchester wandering around this late. Her first instinct was to call John, but her curiosity at seeing where Dean was headed tamped it down.

Dean stared up at the person in the doorway, who in turn was staring down at him. Dean lost the ability to even make a sound, mesmerized by the bright silver thing peeking from behind the angel's back. Wings.

"Can I help you?" Balthazar asked, unable to hide the slight smirk creeping onto his face. What an interesting visitor.

"Nurgh," the boy's mouth opened in what was probably meant to be the beginning of a sentence but instead turned into nonsense.

"What is it?" Castiel asked his brother, moving toward the doorway. He froze when he saw the wide-eyed boy on the porch. What was he doing here?

Dean stared at the second angel, unable to think of something to say. Mouth gaping, his eyes swiveled back to the first, and he was stuck in a weird back and forth until:

"Dean?" the second angel said it hesitantly, not in the familiar way that Dean was used to hearing from people he knew, "That's your name, right?"

The angel crouched to his level, and Dean relaxed slightly. He had a weird, gravelly voice but his smile was friendly and his eyes were blue, blue, blue.

"Yeah," Dean confirmed, resolve restored, "You guys know my mom, right? Can you bring her back?"

The blue-eyed angel's head snapped up to look at the other one, his smile gone.

The first angel said something to Dean, and Dean couldn't help but think that his voice was funny like the people in those old Harry Potter movies. The only words his young brain registered were "I'm sorry."

"Wait, what?" Dean was confused, "Why are you saying sorry?"

The angel sighed, and the one kneeling on the floor put a hand on Dean's shoulder, turning him in his direction.

"We can't bring your mother back, Dean," he said slowly, "I'm very sorry."

Dean didn't realize he was crying until his tongue tasted salt. What was wrong? Why couldn't they help him?

"Please," his voice broke, and he would have been embarrassed if he wasn't so upset, "My baby brother hasn't even met her yet, not really!"

The angel closed his blue eyes and shook his head.

Dean sobbed, standing on their porch because his mother was dead and she wasn't coming back, and he suddenly thought that angels sucked, which wasn't a nice word, but he really didn't care.

Dean eventually tore back down their steps and ran across the street without looking both ways. His father was waiting for him on their front porch, and Dean didn't even have the energy to feel guilty at sneaking out because John was hugging him, and of course he wasn't mad.

* * *

**Ok, hi, guys! I'm really excited about this AU, so let me know what you think. I hope I accomplished a passable stream of consciousness style from a little kid perspective, so please give me feedback on that in particular. PLEASE. And don't worry, next chapter returns to present time. **


	2. Chapter 2

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

Dean gritted his teeth, his hand involuntarily tugging at his short, light brown hair in frustration.

"What is it?" Sam, perfectly zen as always, turned to his older brother in confusion, "What's wrong?"

Dean sighed, scrubbing a hand across his mouth. "It's this case," he groaned, stating what he thought was the obvious, "It's awful. It's…gruesome. Remind me why I didn't take a desk job again?"

Dean thought this country was getting somewhere as far as angelic hate crime was concerned, he really did. The worst incidents popping up in the news nowadays were the occasional threatening brick thrown through a window, which the local enforcements were well-equipped to handle, obviously. This…this reminded him of the early days, back when he was still just a kid, but far worse.

Yesterday, a homeless man in New York City had discovered six severed angel wings, lying bloody next to a dumpster. They were all about 10 feet in length, and the feathers were in varying shades of blue. Those who lived near the area said there wasn't an angel in residence, and stranger yet, DNA testing revealed the wings to have all come from one angel. One angel. With six wings. It was unheard of.

"The reason you didn't take a desk job," Sam clapped his brother on the shoulder, "is because you don't want to be fat. Remember when you announced that at a brunch and offended half the people there? Yeah."

Dean's lips twitched at the memory.

"And I know it's horrible," Sam continued, forgetting that he was Dean's brother and partner and not his therapist, "But we're saving the world, remember? One case at a time."

Not exactly, but whatever. Sam liked to think they were making a difference, and Dean wasn't going to crush that adorable dream. They were going to bring this mutant angel justice; he would make damn sure.

They had a list of all those convicted for hate crimes on the Lower West Side, and they were starting at the top. None of them had resorted to such extreme violence, but it took a certain amount of evil to possess such irrational hate in the first place, and that could be twisted easily enough.

A man named Jim Manson was first. His niece was living with an angel she was romantically involved with, and ol' Jim had tried to set their house on fire when they weren't home. Currently out on parole. Dean couldn't wait to drill this guy; it always gave him sick amusement to hear their bullshit.

Manson was a crusty middle-aged guy who was renting out what looked like a former crackhouse with some other shady looking parolees.

"What do you have against angels?" Dean asked, after several minutes of fruitless questioning.

"It's not what I have against 'em," Manson coughed, "It's what God has against 'em."

Sam and Dean exchanged looks. Usually the religious nuts either embraced them, or respected them out of fear. This was a unique approach.

"You know they're not actually angels, right?" Dean tried to break through the man's wall of insanity, "They're aliens. Real angels don't exist."

Sam made an uncomfortable noise that Dean didn't bother trying to interpret. He instead waited intently for the man's response.

"God didn't want 'em no more," Manson insisted, "The way I see it, they must've done somthin' wrong. Rebelled. That's why they're here: it's punishment."

Dean shook his head in disbelief. This guy might not have assaulted any angels recently, but there was no way he should have been let back on the streets.

"We're the only children God cares about now," the delusional man locked eyes with him, "He wants us to take those angels out."

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"Woo," Dean chuckled a little on their way to the next suspect, "There's just something about the crazies, huh?"

He glanced at his brother to see if he found the situation funny as well, but Sam's jaw was tight and his hazel eyes were pensive.

"What?" Dean demanded.

"It's just…" Sam blew a puff of air, which wasn't a good sign, "What if that guy was right?"

Several thoughts flitted across Dean's mind, some involving disowning his brother. He pulled into a parking spot a block away from their next house, and turned sharply toward his insane brother, glaring. Sam gave him a helpless look.

"I don't mean about the whole banishing thing! What if he's right about them being angels? Real angels!"

Dean rewarded this insight with another look before sliding out of the Impala, slamming the door. Sam rolled his eyes and followed suit.

"I'm serious, Dean," he pulled one of his notorious bitch faces, "Why is it so hard to believe?"

Dean whirled on him. "Because Sam," he stated harshly, "All the crap that happens to people, and not even the big crap; the small, random crap that doesn't need to happen, happens, and it makes the big crap _that much worse_. Don't you think that, if there was a God, and angels, that kind of stuff wouldn't go down?"

"Good things _do _happen," Sam insisted, "Miracles happen, even. You just don't see it."

Dean snorted, effectively terminating the conversation. When did his brother get so damn spiritual, anyway? This was news to him.

They visited five more suspects before deciding to call it quits. None of them seemed guilty, and most of them had alibis, anyway. It was getting ridiculous.

"There is so much fucked up about this case," Dean snarled. They were eating at a Chinese place just down the street from the crime scene, on the pretense of looking for clues. "Who even has the balls and/or the juice to mess with an angel like that? A mutant angel with three pairs of wings. The assailant would have to be a sasquatch like you."

"Forensics said there were bits of vertebrae still attached. They called while you were in the bathroom," Sam added, grimacing, "And they couldn't lift any prints, but it was obvious that someone had ripped them out with their bare hands."

"_Jesus_," Dean swore, rubbing his temples at the slight ache that was building there, "We're in over our heads."

"Yup," Sam agreed, "But I think this means we can rule out everyone else on that list as a subject. We're obviously dealing with angel-on-angel violence."

Dean groaned. "I need a drink."

"Hey, what was that?"

They were loitering outside the Chinese place. It was late, and they were trying to decide whether or not to head for a bar and take a taxi home after. It would leave the car abandoned until the next morning, and that's what they were stuck on.

"What was what?" Sam asked, eyes scoping the area.

There it was again. A shadow flitting across the alley where the wings were discovered. Dean didn't even question It before bolting, cutting across two lanes of traffic and leaving Sam in his dust.

Dean shouted "HEY" moments before finding himself pressed against the grimey side of a building, gasping for breath, dangling feet struggling to find purchase.

He managed to tilt his head down so he could see his captor, a little, and was met with a steely gaze, eyes that were a rare shade of blue and vaguely familiar.

When their eyes met, Castiel realized he knew the man in his grip, and released him, perhaps a little unceremoniously. He did, however, catch him before he slumped to the pavement like a rag doll.

Dean coughed violently, and pushed the man away, fixing him with what he hoped was a threatening stare.

"Assaulting an FBI agent," Dean accused shakily, "And trespassing on a crime scene. That's some serious shit, dude."

Sam chose that moment to come tearing around the corner, and Dean fought the urge to tell him off. he was glad he'd shown up because this guy was strong as hell, and frankly, he was worried for his life, but where was he when he'd almost asphyxiated to death?

The attacker turned calmly in the direction of his brother, casting his face in the light coming from the street lamp.

It wasn't just the eyes that were familiar now, it was everything about him. Flashes of a long-ago memory struggled to arrange themselves into something coherent, but Dean_ knew_ him.

"Who are you?" he commanded. The man, saying nothing, slipped off the bulky trench coat he was wearing while the Winchesters stared in confusion. What was he doing? Their hands instinctively went for their guns, in case he had an AK-47 or something equally lethal tucked under that coat.

Instead, there was a loud snap, the sound of ruffling feathers, and suddenly, two huge, dark wings stretched themselves across the alley, making the brothers jump back in shock.

They really were big; not as vast as the amputated wings they'd found there, but the wingspan had to be 15 feet, at least. How the angel had hid them before, Dean couldn't imagine; the coat had been bulky, but not _that_ bulky.

"Oh." Sam's understated response would have been funny if this whole thing hadn't been so damn weird.

Here was a creature that could kill them easily, who was maybe even the same one that had brutally wing-strated that poor, nameless angel. If Dean was being honest with himself, their chances of survival were pretty slim. Well, his were, anyway: he was kind of trapped. Sam probably could have run away easily, but for some reason the idiotic moose just stood there.

"Sam, run!"

"No need to run," the angel said, almost serenely. Shit, that voice. That just-tumbled-out-of-bed voice. Dean recognized it, but why couldn't he place the memory? He gritted his teeth in frustration.

"Of course you would say that," Dean accused, "But why should we believe you?"

The angel sighed again, drawing his intimidating wings in close to his body, which didn't really even out the playing field any, but still put Dean more at ease.

"My name is Castiel," Odd name, but then, they all had odd names. "I'm not the criminal you're looking for, nor am I going to hurt you."

The brothers glanced at each other. If this guy was going to kill them, he probably would have done it already, so they might as well hear him out.

"Then what are you doing here?" Sam asked, fighting to keep suspicion and hostility out of his tone.

"Conducting my own investigation," Castiel said simply. Okay.

"Really?" Dean asked snarkily, "Do you have any credentials? Permission to enter a crime scene?"

Castiel turned his gaze on him, as if Dean was nothing more than a self-important little kid.

"Not from any authority _you _follow," he answered cryptically.

Dean couldn't help but think that he was a patronizing dick.

"Look, buddy, just 'cause we're humans doesn't mean we don't want to, or can't, help."

"I understand that," the angel responded, "But you can't do it alone. I'm actually here to enlist your help. Surprise."

This situation was getting more bizarre by the minute. Dean pushed away the fuzzy memories for sake of logic, because in reality, he'd only met this guy 15 minutes ago.

Sam stood quietly on the sidelines, probably caught up in religious fervor at meeting this "celestial" being.

"Wait," Dean started, "What do your—"

He stopped short when he realized that Castiel wasn't there anymore. He was just…gone. Dean might have thought he'd imagined the encounter if there wasn't a small pile of long, ash-gray feathers in his wake.

Dean leaned down to pick one up, surprised at the texture. It was soft and pliant, but hard and unyielding at the same time. When he could easily break the feather of, say, a pigeon, this one would probably break his fingers instead.

"What the hell?" he felt like he'd said that a lot today, "Frickin' teleporting? They can do that?"

Sam shrugged. "I don't think it's teleporting so much as it's just flying…really fast."

Huh. Dean suddenly thought that the best minds in the world could study these angels for as long as they wanted, and they wouldn't even scratch the surface.

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"Should we tell Benny?" Sam asked as Dean drove him home. Benny was their supervisor.

"No," Dean answered immediately, "Why the hell would we tell Benny that we're working with a vigilante angel? Who doesn't even have any qualifications. Who's probably just a tax accountant."

"So we don't get fired when one of the higher-ups finds out?" Sam returned.

"No," Dean repeated, "We don't even know if this is actually going down. We don't know anything. Just…we'll see what happens."

Sam looked like he wanted to argue, but Dean's vicious glare kept him silent.

The weird familiarity of the angel was still gnawing at his mind, so much so that he was having difficulty thinking about anything else. For an entire day he was consumed with infuriating, stunted flashbacks of blue eyes and a gravelly voice, and it was driving him up a wall.

Two days after meeting Castiel, he decided to fess up. There was no real reason to hide it, anyway, and maybe his genius of a brother could explain it somehow. Fat chance.

"So you know what's weird?" Dean asked. They were in the forensics lab, waiting for Charlie Bradbury, the pathologist, to reveal some new crap she'd discovered. It was the first possible leg-up in the case.

"What?" Sam asked absently, turning a surgical knife in his hand, seemingly fascinated.

"I feel like I know that Castiel guy," Dean answered, "As in, I've met him before. Somewhere."

Sam looked at him, forehead steeped with confusion.

"Really?" he set down the gruesome tool, no longer interested, "When?"

"I don't know, man," he was trying to figure that out himself, "He just looks familiar."

"Well, if he lives in the area you might have seen him at the grocery store or something."

"I don't think it's that," Dean said dryly, "I wouldn't remember some random-ass person I met at the _grocery store_."

And picturing the surly, mysterious angel in the cereal aisle was just not an image he could conjure up in his head. It made no sense.

"Hey guys." Charlie bustled past them, always in a hurry. The brothers greeted her and awaited the new evidence.

She was pulling charts out of her bag. Dean hated charts.

"Wellll, this might not have too much to do with finding the killer, but-"

"Wait, killer?" Sam echoed, shamelessly interrupting her, "Who said anything about a killer?"

Charlie blinked. "Chances are the victim bled out," she said, "Those six wings weren't extraneous; we have to assume that they were an integral part of the spinal column. Nobody could just survive that."

Great.

"Anyway, as I was saying. Scientists don't really have a lot of definitive data on the angels. All we have are a few DNA samples. Most of it's just pure speculation."

She spread out the prints, and pointed to them as if the Winchesters would actually understand any of it.

"Look at this one taken from one of the angels we're used to," she gestured to some grainy microscope shots, "Look at the chromosomes."

Sam and Dean looked at them to save face.

"Now look at this one, taken from our six-winged angel."

"They're…different," Sam noticed.

"Yes!" Charlie nearly shrieked, "Different! Similar, but different. That six-winged angel isn't a mutant; he's a whole other species. Earlier, probably much earlier."

It was interesting (sort of) and could potentially have something to do with the case, but they had no idea how. And on top of that, they now had to look for a body. They thanked the enthusiastic Charlie and left the lab, confused and irritated.

"Really wish we knew where Castiel was right now," Sam muttered.

"Ya think?" Dean scoffed, "That smarmy bastard. He knew this was gonna happen."

"That's not fair, Dean," Sam chided, "He offered to help us."

"And how the hell are we supposed to get into contact with this guy?"

Sam's mouth quirked. "Pray?"

"Right," Dean snorted, "As I lay me down to sleep…I pray to Castiel to get his feathery ass down here!"

He laughed back at a grinning Sam, before turning and—

"OOF."

Solid body. Collision. Smelled kinda good. Too close. Way too close.

"Hello, Dean," said the raspy voice, right by his ear. Dean stumbled back, spluttering.

Sam's mouth was a perfect oval in shock, and Dean's own expression wasn't any more dignified.

"How did you—what did—HOW?"

Castiel raised his eyebrows, standing there in his stupid trench coat like nothing happened.

"You prayed to me," he explained breezily, "And I answered."

Dean readjusted his tie, hands shaking. "That was a JOKE. How the hell did you know?"

Castiel grinned, looking first at Sam's speechless face, and then at Dean's embarrassed, almost offended one.

"Isn't it obvious? I'm an angel."

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**a/n: Ok, bear with me because my knowledge of science and DNA is right up there at zero. Thankfully, there won't be any more of that kinda stuff, it was just a placeholder. Also, Word updates these really awkwardly, sorry. Please tell me what you guys think!**


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